Satires of Circumstance Part 23

He answered not, but churchward went, Viewing his draughts with discontent;

And fumbled there the livelong day Till, hollow-eyed, he came away.

- 'Twas said, "The master-mason's ill!"

And all the abbey works stood still.

Quoth Abbot Wygmore: "Why, O why Distress yourself? You'll surely die!"

The mason answered, trouble-torn, "This long-vogued style is quite outworn!

"The upper archmould nohow serves To meet the lower tracery curves:

"The ogees bend too far away To give the flexures interplay.

"This it is causes my distress . . .

So it will ever be unless

"New forms be found to supersede The circle when occasions need.

"To carry it out I have tried and toiled, And now perforce must own me foiled!

"Jeerers will say: 'Here was a man Who could not end what he began!'"

- So pa.s.sed that day, the next, the next; The abbot scanned the task, perplexed;

The townsmen mustered all their wit To fathom how to compa.s.s it,

But no raw artistries availed Where practice in the craft had failed . . .

- One night he tossed, all open-eyed, And early left his helpmeet's side.

Scattering the rushes of the floor He wandered from the chamber door

And sought the sizing pile, whereon Struck dimly a cadaverous dawn

Through freezing rain, that drenched the board Of diagram-lines he last had scored -

Chalked phantasies in vain begot To knife the architectural knot -

In front of which he dully stood, Regarding them in hopeless mood.

He closelier looked; then looked again: The chalk-scratched draught-board faced the rain,

Whose icicled drops deformed the lines Innumerous of his lame designs,

So that they streamed in small white threads From the upper segments to the heads

Of arcs below, uniting them Each by a stalact.i.tic stem.

- At once, with eyes that struck out sparks, He adds accessory cusping-marks,

Then laughs aloud. The thing was done So long a.s.sayed from sun to sun . . .

- Now in his joy he grew aware Of one behind him standing there,

And, turning, saw the abbot, who The weather's whim was watching too.

Onward to Prime the abbot went, Tacit upon the incident.

- Men now discerned as days revolved The ogive riddle had been solved;

Templates were cut, fresh lines were chalked Where lines had been defaced and balked,

And the work swelled and mounted higher, Achievement distancing desire;

Here jambs with transoms fixed between, Where never the like before had been -

There little mullions thinly sawn Where meeting circles once were drawn.

"We knew," men said, "the thing would go After his craft-wit got aglow,

"And, once fulfilled what he has designed, We'll honour him and his great mind!"

When matters stood thus poised awhile, And all surroundings shed a smile,

The master-mason on an eve Homed to his wife and seemed to grieve . . .

- "The abbot spoke to me to-day: He hangs about the works alway.

"He knows the source as well as I Of the new style men magnify.

"He said: 'You pride yourself too much On your creation. Is it such?

"'Surely the hand of G.o.d it is That conjured so, and only His! -

"'Disclosing by the frost and rain Forms your invention chased in vain;

"'Hence the devices deemed so great You copied, and did not create.'

"I feel the abbot's words are just, And that all thanks renounce I must.

"Can a man welcome praise and pelf For hatching art that hatched itself? . . .

"So, I shall own the deft design Is Heaven's outshaping, and not mine."

"What!" said she. "Praise your works ensure To throw away, and quite obscure

"Your beaming and beneficent star?

Better you leave things as they are!